Land Filled with Flies

A Political Economy of the Kalahari

"The image of a pristine isolation has been almost as common in research on foragers as in the popular media. Land filled with Flies is a sustanined argument against such views. Wilmsen marshals an enormous quantity of historical, archival, archeological, ethnographic, and survey data on the Kalahari Zhu to show how far from the reality these images are, how they have their own historical provenance, how they have been analytically distorting, and how they have proven politically pernicious for living groups like the Zhu."—Pauline Peters, Science

"[A] major work. . . . Anthropologists will, and should, use Wilmsen's meticulously detailed study to revise their early lectures in the introductory course, and no future study of African 'foragers' should ignore it."—Parker Shipton, American Anthropologist

"An impressive book. . . . The reader need only read the first few pages to judge both the quality and ambitiousness of the work. . . . Essential reading."—David R. Penna, Africa Today

AcknowlegmentsIntroduction1. The Evolution of IllusionMan Hunter: A Nineteenth-Century LegacyThe Received PastSearch for Authenticity2. The Poverty of Misappropriated TheoryReturn to AuthenticityRevival of the Primitive CritiqueAs They Begin to Produce, So We Begin to Know ThemForagers Come to ClassThe Uses of Ecology3. The Past RecapturedThe Recovered PastThe Recorded Past4. The Past EntrenchedConsolidation of the UnderclassThe Underclass Solidified5. The Ideology of Person and PlaceConcepts of PossessionKinship and TenureConvergence of Indigenous SystemsCoherence in Concepts of Tenure Systems6. The Political Construction of Production RelationsEconomic Correlates of Foraging and FoodAllocation of Access to the Means of ProductionProduction as a Function of Emergent StatusStructural Divisions in an Appearance of EqualityKinship as PracticeClass Characteristics of Zhu Social Relations7. What It Means to Be ExcludedThe Emergence of Ethnicity as a Central LogicSubordinate Tiers in the Labor ReserveContemporary Relations of ProductionValue Flow in an Uncertain Cash EconomyThe Political Economy of Physiology and PhysiqueThe Direction of IntentionNotesReferences Index